page_title: Charleroi
section_title: 1666–1830
hierarchical_section_title: Charleroi / History / 1666–1830
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Charleroi (Belgique) - Plan-relief conservé à l'Hôtel de ville de Charleroi. C'est une copie de l'original datant de 1696 qui se trouve au Palais des beaux-arts de Lille. Photo prise depuis le sud-ouest. Ouvrage consacré au plan-relief de Charleroi&#160;: Maurice-A. Arnould, Le plan en relief de Charleroi, Bruxelles, Crédit Communal, coll. «&#160;Histoire in-4°&#160;», 1986, 68 p. (ISBN 2-87193-006-6)
context_page_description: Charleroi is a city and a municipality of Wallonia, located in the province of Hainaut, Belgium. By January 1, 2008, the total population of Charleroi was 201,593. The metropolitan area, including the outer commuter zone, covers an area of 1,462 square kilometres with a total population of 522,522 by January 1, 2008, ranking it as the 5th most populous in Belgium after Brussels, Antwerp, Liège, and Ghent. The inhabitants are called Carolorégiens or simply Carolos.
context_section_description: Shortly after its foundation, the new city was in turn besieged by the Dutch, ceded to the Spanish in 1678 (Treaty of Nijmegen), taken by the French in 1693, ceded again to the Spanish in 1698 (Treaty of Rijswijk), then taken by the French, the Dutch and the Austrians in 1714 (Treaty of Baden). The French Prince of Conti took the city again in 1745, but it was ceded back to Austria in 1748, beginning a period of prosperity under Joseph II. Glass, steel and coal industries, which had already sprung up a century earlier, could now flourish.
  Trouble began again in 1790, the year of the civil uprising that eventually led to the United States of Belgium. The Austrians occupied the city, were forced out by the French after the Battle of Jemappes on November 6, 1792, and took it back again four months later. On June 12, 1794, the French revolutionary Army of Sambre-et-Meuse under the command of Jean-Baptiste Jourdan, invested Charleroi and won a decisive victory in the ensuing Battle of Fleurus. The city took the revolutionary name of Libre-sur-Sambre until 1800. After France's defeat in 1814, the whole area was annexed to the Netherlands, and new walls were built around the city. Napoleon stayed in Charleroi for a couple of days in June 1815, just before the Battle of Waterloo.
caption: Copy of the plan-relief of Charleroi made in 1696. View from the southwest. On display at the town-hall.
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